Generally, we pay attention to the quarter marks of the solar year: solstices and equinoxes.  However, the seasons are offset from these markers.  At some point in early August, summer begins to move towards fall.  It is still summer with no question, here the corn and tomatoes (so strongly associated with summer) are only just getting going.  The Morning Glories are truly glorious.  Thunderstorms still walk across the hills.  Yet, the scent of the land has changed.  The trees have an olive cast, uncut grass is brown, the pastel colours of fall are heralded by the ivory Queen Anne’s lace, the dusky blues and mauves of chicory and Joe Pye weed.  The goldenrod has begun to bloom and the white wood asters.  The grasshoppers become almost deafening in the cooler nights.  And sometimes the wind has a sharpness.

August, like early February, hints at the coming change.  There is an aliveness, an anticipation which July, somnolent in the heat, lacks.